Is Al Gore a candidate for President or for a heart attack?
You may recall that within a few days of rival Democratic presidential candidate Bill Bradley's disclosure of cardiac arrhythmia -- a generally benign condition -- Gore released his own medical records in hopes of contrasting his supposedly "outstanding" health with that of Bradley.
But perhaps Gore shouldn't have been so hasty to exploit Bradley's condition.
A new study in the Archives of Internal Medicine (Jan. 24) says that men with Al Gore's type of male pattern balding (called vertex balding) and high cholesterol have a statistically significant 178 percent increase in risk of coronary heart disease. Gore's combination of risk factors -- male pattern balding and high cholesterol -- was the most dangerous according to this study of 22,071 U.S. male physicians conducted by Harvard researchers and funded by the National Institutes of Health.
"We found that the association between [male pattern baldness] and [coronary heart disease risk] was even stronger among men with hypertension or high cholesterol," reported the researchers.
According to medical records, Gore's cholesterol level is 231 (below 200 is "normal") and his LDL cholesterol (so-called "bad cholesterol") level is high at 157 (the target level is 130). Dr. Jonathan Steinberg, chief of cardiology at St. Luke's-Roosevelt Hospital and associate professor of medicine at Columbia University Medical School, said Gore's LDL cholesterol level "needs to go down -- it's high at 157."
Men with mild vertex male pattern baldness, like Gore, had a statistically significant 46 percent increase in risk of nonfatal heart attack, according to the study.
The researchers noted their findings "agree with the results from recent large epidemiologic studies... A plausible explanation for an association between baldness and coronary heart disease may be elevated androgen levels. Men with severe baldness seem to have a greater number of androgen receptors in the scalp and higher levels of both serum total and free testosterone... High levels of androgens may directly contribute to both atherosclerosis and thrombosis, and may adversely influence risk factors such as hypertension and high cholesterol.
The researchers called early vertex balding a "nonmodifiable risk factor for coronary heart disease." But they said it may serve as a useful clinical marker to identify men at increased risk who may benefit from "primary prevention efforts" directed at other known modifiable risk factors for coronary heart disease.
Speaking of "primary" and "prevention," voters may want to cast their ballots in the upcoming presidential election primaries so as to prevent a heart attack in the Oval Office.
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